In Honor of Ernesto
‘Popoy’ Valencia
We hope that our testimony in honor of
Popoy can help to define the legacy that he has bequeathed to his
people. He had a tender soul and was troubled by the unkind world that
he lived in but he sought to understand it and welcomed the
revolutionary efforts to change it.
BY JOSE MARIA SISON
Posted by Bulatlat
I wish to
express sincerest condolences to the family of Ernesto “Popoy” Valencia
and join his comrades and friends in honoring him for his achievements
as a patriotic, anti-imperialist and democratic journalist, economist,
teacher and activist. His best works inspire us to fight for the
national and democratic rights and interests of the Filipino people.
I have
always been deeply grateful to him for having published Philippine
Crisis and Revolution (the original title of Philippine Society and
Revolution) in 1970 when he was editor-in-chief of the Philippine
Collegian. He made the work available to the thousands of students at a
time they were in social ferment and were in urgent need of
revolutionary enlightenment and direction.
I have
admired Popoy for making the Philippine Collegian and the College
Editors Guild of the Philippines (CEGP) as major instruments of the
student movement in the First Quarter Storm of 1970 and the general
upsurge of the mass movement from 1970 onward. He did everything he
could to help educate and activate his generation along the general line
of the Filipino people’s struggle for national liberation and democracy.
I came to
know much about Popoy throughout the 1970s through his fellow members of
Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan (SDK or Democratic Youth Association)
who became my comrades in the revolutionary underground. They spoke
highly of him. They were grateful for the support that he extended to
them.
He was
elated by the revolutionary work of his friends and he deeply grieved
the martyrdom of those close to him.
In the
early 1980s, while I was still under military detention, I was happy to
read the research article of an accomplished economist like Popoy,
showing the extent of landlordism and proving that the Philippine
economy was still semi-feudal. I considered his article important
because it served to counter the false notion that the foreign
loan-dependent big comprador economic program of the Marcos fascist
regime had turned the Philippines into a highly urbanized and industrial
capitalist country.
He
published his article before Julie and I could finish our own joint work
on the Philippine mode of production against the attempts to mislead
people about the character of the Philippine economy and to undermine
the political line of national-democratic revolution against foreign
monopoly capitalism, domestic feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism.
Because of
his firm anti-imperialist and anti-feudal stand and his clear
understanding of the Philippine economy, the Working Committee on Social
and Economic Reforms of the Negotiating Panel of the National Democratic
Front of the Philippines invited Popoy to be a consultant. He readily
agreed and contributed greatly to the outlining and initial writing of
the NDFP Draft Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms.
We hope
that our testimony in honor of Popoy can help to define the legacy that
he has bequeathed to his people. He had a tender soul and was troubled
by the unkind world that he lived in but he sought to understand it and
welcomed the revolutionary efforts to change it. Posted by Bulatlat
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